Flying Dimitri - Hardcover

Drawson, Blair

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0888990006 ISBN 13: 9780888990006

Publisher: Irwin Pub, 1978

Synopsis

After presenting a birthday gift to his father, Dimitri embarks on a flying adventure.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

Drawson (Mary Margaret's Tree, 1996) tells a bittersweet, imaginative tale of a boy's bedtime flight, which comes at tooth- brushing time at the end of a happy day--his father's birthday. Dimitri has baked a cake and presented his father with a new tie, and he has in return been tossed in the air, ``just like when I was a little kid.'' But such festivities take very little time, and the house by the ocean in which father and son live is large, full of unfilled space. This emptiness extends to the boy's heart and so he soars over the ocean and to Mars, where he saves a beautiful lady from a dragon before something pulls him back home. The telling line of his journey, its reason for occurring, comes when he asks the lady, ``Are you my mother?'' His question darkens the book and erases the lady's gentle smile in one remarkable painting, sending him tumbling homeward to the father who tucks him in. The flight has failed, and perhaps all such flights are doomed to fail, but Dimitri declares himself happy to be homea situation shared by many readers and one that is sufficiently full to be satisfying. (Picture book. 4-7) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 1-2?In this surreal, gently poignant fantasy, a child hints at profound loss in the course of a wild imaginary flight. Having presented his father with a tie and a homemade birthday cake, Dimitri goes to brush his teeth?and suddenly he's zooming out the window to frolic with whales, then flying off to Mars to rescue a beautiful lady from a dragon. When she gives him a kiss and a hug, he asks, "Are you my mother?" Just as suddenly as he took off, he's back home, being tucked in by his smiling father. The affection shared by parent and child is evident in Drawson's muted, Peter Sis-like paintings, and his Martian scenes display a lively imagination. The spiked, soot-spewing dragon is deliciously menacing, and young viewers will laugh at the Martians who look like seals on tricycles. Though the single parent here is not oblivious to his child's loneliness, this is otherwise comparable in general plot structure and tone to Anthony Browne's Gorilla (Knopf, 1985).?John Peters, New York Public Library
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Irwin Pub
• Publication date: 1978
• ISBN 10: 0888990006
• ISBN 13: 9780888990006
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1